Oenoanda

Ancient Oenoanda was among the northernmost and highest (1350–1450m elevation) of the Lycian cities. Set in wild, forested countryside, it’s almost unpublicized. As an example of how all local sites used to be before tourism, however, it thoroughly rewards the effort that’s required to reach it (own transport essential).

Oenoanda was the birthplace of Diogenes, the second-century AD Epicurean philosopher; to him is attributed antiquity’s longest inscriptionary discourse, scattered in fragments across the site. First surveyed by British archeologists in 1996, Oenoanda is set for more vigorous future excavations. With luck, these will reassemble Diogenes’ text to its full estimated length of 60m, and firmly identify structures. Until then, the site remains a romantic, overgrown maze of tumbled lintels, statue bases, columns, cistern mouths and buried arches, frequented only by squirrels and the occasional hunter or shepherd.